MOBILE, Alabama -- Two of the
biggest stars in architecture and classical music found themselves in
the dim confines of the Temple downtown today. For an hour they
treated a small audience to a spontaneous conversation about art,
architecture and their relationship to the soul of a city.

The
idea to put Andres Duany, pioneer of the New Urbanism city planning
movement, and Yo-Yo Ma, a world-renowned cellist, on stage together
developed late, said Carol Hunter, a spokeswoman for the Downtown Mobile
Alliance, which helped to organize the event.

Hunter said that
the idea started when Gregg Gufstafson, chief executive officer of the
Mobile Symphony Orchestra, found out that the two would be in town at the same time -- Duany to help shepherd a rezoning effort and Ma to play a concert at The Saenger Theatre.

"I
think he just had a feeling that, knowing them, if we put them on the
stage together, there was the potential for a great intellectual
conversation," she said.

At first, Hunter facilitated the dialogue, asking questions about the nexus of art and city planning.

The regional diversity in the flavor of cities influences the diversity in regional music, Ma said. "It shows up in the DNA of music."

For those who know Duany only as the designer of Seaside, Fla., his thoughts on the importance of regionalism and diversity in architecture might have surprised.

Seaside's architecture is so carefully prescribed to evoke a certain American ideal that filmmakers selected the community to shoot the Truman Show, a movie about a manufactured utopian town.

Duany, though, said that he cherished the vibrancy and variety of a city like Mobile.

"I love, as an urbanist, the gritty part, the imperfections," he said.

Eventually Duany and Ma started asking each other questions, riffing like a pair of jamming musicians.

Ma asked Duany how his strategy changed when he moved from a development like Seaside, which started as a clean slate, to an existing historic city like Mobile.

Duany said that when working in an existing historic environment, there has to be a conversation with the local community and its expectations. The underlying principles, walkability and an architecture that fosters community interaction, remain the same.

Duany may have also surprised some who associate building codes with stifling regulations.

"Urbanism is about enabling people to do things," he said.

Recently returned from a community redesign across the state line in Escambia County, Fla., Duany praised Alabama's pro business regulatory climate.

Escambia County officials were eager to know how they could land some of the suppliers expected to flock to the Gulf Coast as Airbus ramps up its production of commercial jets in Mobile, he said.

Duany told community leaders that, unless they followed Alabama's lead and loosened restrictions, suppliers would pass them over to come to Mobile.

Alabamians still look forward to growth, he said, rather than trying to choke it off to appease people who don't want their cities neighborhoods to change, to evolve.

Earlier Tuesday afternoon, as Duany walked the downtown neighborhood, he asked urban development officials how they handled certain regulatory issues like flood zones and fire-safety requirements.

Most of the potential stumbling blocks had already been dealt with.

"This is a perfect little town," he said.

Ma closed out the discussion by playing Bach's Cello Suite No. 1. As artists and architects consider their work, he said, they might look to the infinite variety found in nature.

"Nature has the greatest imagination, but she guards her secrets jealously," he said.

Duany's firm, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, will be working on the downtown redesign through Saturday at their work space in the Temple, 351 St. Francis St.

Interested members of the public can drop in to offer input in any time from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Duany will hold community discussions on specific planning issues at the following times: